Natalie (Killer Mermaid) Burn’s son has been kidnapped by a shadowy underworld figure (Dolph Lundgren). In order to get him back, she must complete five tasks… and by “tasks” I mean she has to kill five dudes. Since we already saw Burn and Lundgren teaming up to shoot a bunch of guys in the cliched “Let’s Show You This One Part from the End of the Movie Before the Opening Credits Roll”, we have a feeling that somebody else is pulling the strings.
Burn (who also produced and served as the casting director) equips herself nicely in the lead, playing a confident and tough badass. She even shows a vulnerable side to her character, which makes her a surprisingly well-rounded heroine for this sort of thing. Dressed in a skintight outfit that makes her look like Kate Beckinsale’s stunt double from the Underworld movies, Burn does a solid job in the action scenes as she gamely Kung Fus and shoots people. The movie itself never really catches fire, but I’d watch her in another DTV action flick.
Lundgren (who also starred with Burn in Hard Night Falling from the same year) spends a lot of his time looking at TV monitors and keeping tabs on Burn. He does have a nice rapport with Burn’s kidnapped son, which allows him to flex his acting chops a bit. Like Altitude, he literally sits out most of the movie, which may come as a disappointment to his fans.
The supporting cast is a Who’s Who of DTV luminaries and random-ass actors. The usually subdued Sean Patrick Flanery annoyingly overacts as the cranky crime boss. I don’t know if he was experimenting with Nicolas Cage-style overacting techniques or what, but it just isn’t a good look for him. We also have Chuck Liddell as a cliched henchman character, Oscar nominee Sally (Fatal Games) Kirkland as a waitress, an unrecognizable Jason London as a junkie, and Danny Trejo as the uh… Danny Trejo character.
The most surprising cast member was Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, who plays a soft-spoken gangster with an almost Buddhist attitude towards crime. I thought he was great in The A-Team and he does a good job here. It’s a shame he was never able to capitalize on his work as B.A. because he could’ve potentially had a fine career in the DTV realm, as clearly evidenced here.
The movie itself is a competent, if forgettable, exercise. You can see the John Wick influence as scenes are often bathed in purple light. They don’t have the intricate “rules” of that franchise, but the directors (Michael Merino and Daniel Zirilli) certainly take a lot of visual cues from it. Although Acceleration never really puts the pedal to the metal, it’s an OK DTV flick, with a decent amount of action, a not-bad plot twist, and some pretty solid editing (courtesy of Mike Mendez, who also directed Dolph in Don’t Kill It).
AKA: The Driver.
No comments:
Post a Comment